AWARD WINNING COMPOSER HANIA RANI RELEASES NON FICTION – PIANO CONCERTO IN FOUR MOVEMENTS
RECORDED WITH MANCHESTER COLLECTIVE AND HUGH TIEPPO-BRUNT (CONDUCTOR)
AT ABBEY ROAD STUDIO 2 WITH GUEST PERFORMANCES FROM JACK WYLLIE (SAXOPHONE) AND VALENTINA MAGALETTI (DRUMS AND PERCUSSION)
LISTEN TO NON FICTION HERE
WORLD PREMIERE PERFORMANCE OF NON FICTION
SET FOR NOVEMBER 25 AT THE BARBICAN CENTRE, LONDON
14 NOVEMBER 2025 (TORONTO, ON) — Today multi-award-winning composer, producer, pianist and vocalist, Hania Rani, releases her latest effort Non Fiction - Piano Concerto in Four Movements (Decca Records US). Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, with a 45-piece orchestra, Non Fiction marks a new chapter in Rani’s career as she segues from the electronic tones and songs of her acclaimed album Ghosts into the symphonic realm, forging a bridge between her elegant experimentalism and classical training. The piano concerto strives to create a soundscape of aural juxtaposition, to examine how we respond to the atrocities of war and human suffering, looking through the lens of modern horrors in both Ukraine and Palestine, and how we “observe” and “hear” them through our use of digital technology. Showcasing Hania’s fearless and highly idiosyncratic approach to a new direction for instrumental music, the score is powerful, singular, and profound. Non Fiction will be is available globally now across all digital platforms and on LP and CD. You can listen to Non Fiction here.
The world premiere performance of Non Fiction will take place at the Barbican Centre in London, November 25-26 and the North American premiere will be as part of the prestigious Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, TN in March 2026.
Rani collaborated with leading figures across genres from today’s contemporary music world, each of whom played key roles in helping to deliver Rani’s ambitious vision for Non Fiction. Manchester Collective, who are known for their genre-crossing collaborations and imaginative presentation of classical and contemporary music, perform the orchestral score. Conductor Hugh Tieppo-Brunt is co-Artistic Director of the London Contemporary Orchestra, who has conducted projects with Jonny Greenwood, Hildur Guðnadóttir, and Thom Yorke. Violinist Rakhi Singh, who has performed with Philip Glass, Abel Selaocoe, and Hiromi, and is the co-founder and co-artistic director of Manchester Collective, leads the 45-piece orchestra for the recording and together with Tieppo-Brunt, who she introduced to Rani, played a vital role in helping deliver Rani’s ambitious vision for the piece.
Finally, the remarkable individual voices of saxophonist Jack Wyllie, a founding member of Mercury Prize nominated Portico Quartet, and Valentina Magaletti, the prolific drummer-composer who is one half of the critically acclaimed electronic duo, Tomaga and an erstwhile member of psychedelic pop band Vanishing Twin, expanded the piece’s vernacular with the tone of improvised and experimental music. Together they helped shape a sound that feels timeless yet of the moment.
Following her acclaimed solo albums, worldwide Ghosts tour and multiple live recordings, including performances at Tiny Desk and most recently as her synth-based, alter-ego Chilling Bambino, with each project Rani brings her audience new sonic experiences. Now, brought into being by an extraordinary merging of a 45-piece orchestra and experimental instrumentalists, Non Fiction actively engages the audience in a musical conversation across four contrasting movements. Non Fiction reflects on the human cost of war, drawing inspiration from both the rediscovery of compositions by Josima Feldschuh, a young prodigy who wrote music during World War II in the Ghetto in Warsaw and the present horrors of war in Ukraine and Palestine. Confronting how violence is depicted from afar through modern media, Non Fiction unfolds as a study in contrasts and Rani translates this into a musical language.
“When approaching the project both sonically and philosophically, what intrigued me was not just the historical aspect of the story, but how acutely pertinent it felt - somehow impossible to understand without considering the context of the present moment,” says Hania. “If you were to juxtapose the images of the demolished city of Warsaw during World War II with the devastated Gaza Strip today, the images are so strikingly similar that it can be difficult to recognize either location or time in history. This is why I felt compelled to approach Josima's story through the lens of my generation and the questions we are grappling with today. The aim was not only to avoid reducing something so profoundly human to a museum object, but also to use it as a means of understanding the complex fabric of the present - marked by unimaginable violence - and, through the lens of 'now,' to reconsider what dwells in the past.’
Non Fiction – Piano Concerto In Four Movements
- Sonore - Animato - Meno Mosso
- Tenebroso - Presto - Cantabile
III. Misterioso
- Semplice
Hania Rani is a multi-award winning composer and pianist who moves effortlessly between the worlds of classical and experimental music. Rani trained as a classical pianist in Warsaw and later studied in Berlin, where she began to explore electronic music and collaborative art forms. Now based in London she has established herself as one of the most adventurous voices in contemporary music. Her immensely diverse catalog includes but is not limited to solo works (Esja, Home, Ghosts), collaborative efforts (Inner Symphonies), film/TV (I Never Cry, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart), theater scores and sound installations. She has performed to sold-out audiences at leading venues worldwide, from the Sydney Opera House and the Berlin Philharmonie to the Roundhouse in London. Additionally, Rani continues to compose for film with projects that include Academy Award Nominee Joachim Trier’s masterful Sentimental Value (winner of the 2025 Cannes Grand Prix).